Vent: I looked up the actual number of people who worked on the Apollo program and it blew my mind

I was in a rabbit hole about the moon landing being fake, and I got curious about how many people it would take to pull off a hoax that big. I found a NASA fact sheet that said over 400,000 engineers, scientists, and technicians worked on Apollo across the whole country. That's like the population of a big city. I mean, how do you keep that many people quiet for over 50 years? The logistics of faking it with that many people involved seems way harder than just going to the moon. Has anyone else seen a good argument against this point?

3 comments

3 Comments

anthony_lane552mo ago

That 400,000 number is just for NASA and its main contractors. You have to add all the subcontractors and suppliers, probably pushing it over half a million. The idea that every single one of those people, plus their families, could keep a secret that huge is just wild. The sheer cost of paying them all off would be more than the actual program. It falls apart the second you look at the people involved.

tessa_lewis2mo ago

But how many of those half million actually knew the full picture instead of just their small part?

the_miles24d ago

Start with @tessa_lewis and ask if she really thinks compartmentalization works that perfectly for 50 years. I mean yeah, not every one of those 400,000 people knew the full blueprint, but a ton of them still knew they were building rocket parts or testing spacesuits or whatever. Even the low level guys knew their piece was for something that was supposedly going to the moon. How many of them do you think went to their grave without telling their spouse or a friend? The sheer number of people who would have to be in on it or at least suspicious is insane. @anthony_lane55 nailed it. Paying off half a million people or convincing them to keep quiet forever is way harder than just building the damn rocket. The hoax theory falls apart under its own weight when you actually think about human nature.